Peace is one thing, opening up to it and sitting still in it for a time determines whther peace is beneficial or not. Too often people are so busy and full of plans that they miss the peace altogether, and if it is not embraced in the moment, just as quickly, it flits away, like a bird ypu will only see once in a life. If peace descends on you, know that the Lord has come, and surrender to His silence and peace embracing Him in them, so you may grow to embrace Him.
I weep. Something so splendid and so subblime is being fouled by evil, destroyed and trampled into the mud. It cost the lives of millions to defend through long years of killing and destruction. Now it's very leader is being overturned in his iniquities and must answer for what he has done,
I weep too for the kindness that asserts itself through the midst of brutality and contempt when some are mourning what was taken from them.
I weep for the pain and anguish of so many souls, afflicted and reduced to dust. I see the Lord acting to show us what He means, and what He demands we do, and still so many will not respond.
Mercy, yes but obedience proves who we are, The longer we remain as we are, we do not progress. Infinite, yes, but He cares about what we think of ourselves, and we have not thought the thoughts that filled His Heart,
If it were ncessary, He would be crucified once for every life on earth. That kind of life needs to be answered with simillitude to Himself and we must desire it, or it is like a flashlight without batteries. All that passion cannot be ignored.
And when I might have looked for a little relief, and drop of water, an analgesic for my pain, I was asked to fast a little longer, and to wait for a drop of rain or a little tear.
Then He shows me once again the splendor and magnificence of all He's done, and I feel very small. He shows me remedies for other people's pain, and the largeness of His Heart reminds me of His love and everything is swallowed in dark night and silence, while the only comfort stands before me shining love.
To each moment is given enough silence and enough solitude to seek and find God.
To each person and each soul is given faith and grace which they may take and keep or squander away as he pleases.
But we must answer for what we did with our silences and solitudes, with our faith or our profligacy, our sin.
Watch your step. Do not mistake liberty for freedom, for while liberty sets a bird on its wings, its freedom ends in stillness when our time for all things is at an end.
For every moment there is the possibility of bliss, and the prudent soul seeks it sparingly, not gathering the honeysuckle of our journey debauch us too much, for our God is a jealous God, and it pleases HIm to give and to take away.
Seek Him in splendors and glories and remember what you were given, just so you may have the delight of loving Him in each moment and catching fire in the flames of the love in His Heart. For while bliss is given to the saintly who deserve it, there are many who remain barren and think it is their own fault, when in fact, the Lord loves them infinitely; they were not unworthy ... He saw them splendid as the day they were born and the first prayer issued from theiir lips is not forotten.
I have known desolation and the fierce fires of wilderness sun when the wounds of the Lord were busy imposing themselves on me. You have not known me, only God has, and only He knows my value, sin or grace. As He passes by us, men ignite us into flames of love by their mere presence, such is the furnace of their love of God as they moved in our midst stirring embers of His love lest the fire goes out.
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| Great love is born of great love. Love ardently. |
Behind every injury there is a story to be told. I tripped on uneven ground on the way to the bus stop to get a new glucometer. I was flung forward full tilt at the edge of the hightway in the crosswalk. A bystander asked if I was alright and asked if I needed help, then proceeded to struggle with me until I could regain my feet. This same thing happened months earlier with more severe consequences on the way back from the drug store past the post office on an uneven piece of sidewalk.
Both palms of my hands were scraped and the finger next to my pinky finger got sprained and gouged a bit. It is swollen and bruised, but I mananged to get back home after walking many blocks. I had bought some bandaging and tended to the injuries.
Being Lent, I suspected something may happen to injure me, and I wasn't disappointed. I offered the injuries to God for the souls in purgatory and those who had most need of His mercy and felt approbation and a sense that in accepting the injuries I had fulfilled His desires.
There is so much deliberate sin and selfish preoccupation in the world, that He has almost no choice but to accept our little sacrifices for the needs of souls.
People have almost no clue that misfortune accompanies a christian walk im plicitly. In the season of Lent, we are asked tobe willing to suffer for souls and to fast for their needs, spiritual and temporat. Those who take that need to heart may or may not connect the two, but the connection exists.
Jesus offered to suffer for us and was crucified when He made His offering to the Father for our salvation. He did'nt hesitate, though His humanity cried out at what He saw the Father asked of Him. He has few friends willing to go as far as He was willing to go, and, after being nailed to the cross and the cross fixed into the ground, He endured all the agonies of the crucifixion.
There is so much need in the world. Ultimately, our portion of atonement must be equal to His own, but we are not able to offer much that would suffice. He knew our limitations and allowed Himself to make up the difference as the Son of God. The intercessory hermit living in silence and solitude sacrifices everything he can and everything he knows would be meritorius. There is finality in the offerings of men to God. Just as I was spared a worse event, I did not escape suffering, just accepted what happened, and He made sure there was someone to assist me in my hour of need.
Within my resources, there is enough to take care of my needs, and I actively participate. Pray for me to be able to pray for you if you have needs. The Lord's providence is not skimpy. We see only a very dim reality, but accepted when we would rather be enjoying our lives has undisclosed efficacy all the way around.
If you don't want to do penance, I will do it for you. That is the statement a monk proclaims when he wears his habit, and it speaks not only to lay persons but to every cleric, priest, hermit or monk on the planet.
Perhaps that unmasks the power of Christ in the world. Think of how many souls that is, and it seems apparent that it is prodigious, but God knows how effective it is when EVERY person fasts, denies himself or dedicates time to prayer and solitude in addition to seeking God in a peaceful moment.
People like donald trump have no way to imagine the power locked down tight in every human heart, the longing and the sheer yearning for life, peace happiness and satisfaction of all human need.
Truth will triumph and people will prevail over every insurmountable objective. Evil is so short-sighted that it cannot conceive of such a condition, and therefore it does not because it cannot. Stubborn people who do the unthnkable have no conception what God knows or can do, until plans fall through and evil is defeated prostrate in impotence in the depths of the earth.
We should also understand that Christ's victory means evil will not exist as far as anyone in Christ is concerned. The shrieks of terror and graosn of impotence will be silenced so that God may speak to every person unimpeded. After all, the peace of God is Himself descended upon us and mingling with us in our very substance.
I am left to think these thoughts but be unable to speak them, so I rely on Him to speak these few words to the hearts most needing to hear them. May the comfort of Christ in the midst of His passion comfort you in your sufferings.
The peace we kindle in our souls is meant ti ignite a world to seek peace and rest in God.We can offer our hopes and prayers within our hearts and give it away soul by soul. Peace does not appear where animoisty and mistrust infiltrate.
A life dedicated to God, which embraces peace and solitude nourishes silence where the voice of God is heard. The peace of God is more devatating than any other force in the universe. I yearn for the peace of God because I am immersed in it fully; but it is not meant merely for my own gratification, neither is it premised upon self aggrandisement. In my heart I kneel before God who seeks to unite me to Himself, even in the flickering of my flame, a light in peril which continues burning only because it pleases God.
Why should I not give thanks or erupt in love, speaking words meant for God to hear? And if I speak in silences and rest in His light, it is for His desire to be fulfilled, feeble as it may be.
I await the miracles of lives dedicated and consecrated to Jesus. They always amaze me, the way a painting does which illuminates a heart in shadows so the world might see.
We can move hearts with our love, and our peace can make a soldier throw away his gun, and silences drones and bombs and the futility of selfish ego which can only destroy. But the true , real peace is in God in spite of the terrible storms which convulse the earth. The earth itself may split to the core and convulse in explosions of fire, yet it can quietly flow in silence doing nothing more at our feet than to illuminate a darkness we did not know lurked within. To be sure, that sound is weak, like a starving kitten freezing cold. But we can bring the warmth of our lovingpeace to whoever needs it. We only need to be there free.
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| Peace is very near us, like seeking light. |
My Jesus, I trust in you. For every temptaion, compulsion orphobia, this magnificent little prayer is the key to unlocing grace that will exactly counter whateve troubles you, and leaves you standing in peace.
In an age when governments become enemies and wars threaten all the time, praying this prayer is the only profitable avenue of action to take. Put your whole self in His arms and offer Him all your love. He who will give Jesus his love will not be left without relief.
We may participate in the passion of Christ or the suffering of our best friend, or we can participate in the passion of Jesus, which is a case unto itself.
Sometimes our friend shares his suffering, and we do not feel it, but we are sad noentheless because he suffers.
There is enough suffering to go around; it will never be lacking. We do not necesarilly come to know the cause of our sorrows, or we feel the sadness without relief and without knowing why. But it is a universal constant that is always present, seemingly, without rhyme or reason.
All of us have sinned, so there is always that to postulate as the cause of our suffering. If we offer a prayer for the relief of our friend, it is a blessing when he is relieved, and a good man is glad when suffering ends and joy returns. Blessed is the man with a friend who offers himself for his friend :) +
I found bliss in the strangest place; in the middle of a strong temptation, My Lord revealed Himself in a close embrace that inumdated my senses.
He is the God of the unexpected, the God who revealks HImself in ambushes, sweeping us off our feet, weightless for all our cares.
Whatever you need, He knows about it and provides Himself as an answer to all the questions fears and doubts with thich the enemy torments us.
To be lost is a fear that saps all the joy form ouir souls, but God's supply is infinite, and so our lives can never know borned or ennui; His prsence is all encompassing.
May you feel caress.
God reveals Himself to us so we will let hIm consume us.
There is a moment that comes into every life, when a person discovers he has been standing at the knife's edge of the abyss. Blessed the man for whom prayer is sufficient, efficacious for the moment.
The best prayer is the one in that exact moment, where the heart earnestly appeals to God to love him and urgently seeks to be forgiven sins and to advance beyond retribution to reach out and touch His Face.
Once the storm has passed, peace returns, but one is not the same. All advances in spiritual life are after that moment when we have died in that moment.
People have wondered for as long as there have been human beings, what is death? We know it is a change, but that does terrify as much losing all control over our existance. There should be no fear in someone who has stood at the lip of the abyss and seen all the way across the abyss to Jesus, earnestly waving for us to cross over and stand at His side.
Some have been and come back, but they are not the same; that person has been changed by God so that we prepared to transcend, having left discomfort behind.
Most of what we experience in life is of a nature we can do nothing about. The tiny point in abyss remains the moment of terror when we emerge in the light broad vistas of Jesus. Perhaps that is why those who have sought peace and solitude found them on a high mountainside, or a great sweeping ocean where the waves curl in ceaselessly.
The feeling of being abandoned for some trespass is not easy to live with, or, frankly to get rid of. But it is a feelings I have consented to live with for the sake of the Lord because it pleases Him.
The stakes are too grave to refuse. Trouble is, it is difficult to live with so much sadness, confusion and chaos, and the destruction and violence of wars can only be ground down by something equally as hard.
In that regard, for transgressors who have done substantial destruction because he feels he is entitled, hope is almost dead of ever seeing life spring up again in such a hostile environment. When it gets too much, He gets to taste the fullness of such desolation. But in the voyage, it is impossible to pass by places where all His love has been so profligately splashed across the landscape. So on one hand, there is the starkest beauty in desolation and the suffering of abandoment, but on the other hand, to be in that moment when my feet will tread no farther no matter what I try to will. Seeing me and what has happened to me, He is not distant, and if He did not consent to mitigate the darkness I could not go on in this life.
As a consequence, He reaches down to me where I am laid out on the ground and lifts me up to be with Him at His side. He puts His finger in my side, and asks me to put my finger into His side because He cannot bear to be without the love He finds, and bathed in the crimson of His sacrifice, I am filled with bliss and tears wash my face, as He helps me to my feet when He sees I am ready.
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| My ey is upon you, to guard your step and to reach out through your darkness to give you light. |
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| A leaf leached out its tanin into the cement and retained an image of the leaf in the cement. |
The whole act was precise. Without precision, the bomb would not have exploded as designed.
Pictures show rubble where there had been buildings housing people, but no people, the people were vaporized. No one in the youtube videos I have watched, about Hiroshima and Nagasaki nor even Trinity itself, mention EMP. It undobtedly existed, but no one noted the electromagnetic pulse that resulted from the release of nuclear force. Afterwards, the Japanese commanders noted total silence where there was usually all kinds of chatter by military personnel performing their duties, and civil authorities noted the abscence of chatter on radios from all over the region that usually existed. The people who would have made all the chatter did not transmit anyting - they no longer physically existed.
The largest ever nuclear detonation was made by Russia, called Tsar Bomba. It was so powerful, that it caused disruption of radio and electronic devices instantaneously. It proved to be too powerful, destroying too much to be usuable.
In some movies describing a nuclear attack, the people at ground zero beneath the thermonuclear explosion hear an eerie ringing sound and then there is silence. Any electronic device not sheilded from the electromagnetic pulse was destroyed by an electrical pulse that surges through electronic circuits, exploding each of them and rendering them useless.
That is why a place called Cheyenne Mountain was constructed inside a mountain in Colorado, so the electronic devices inside the bunker would be sheilded sufficiently from the power of the electronic wave. Government could go on functioning and armed forces could function to launch our own nuclear weapons at enemies far away.
The use of nuclear weapons would be an act of fury and anger of no use, because the land beneath a nuclear explosion would be vaporized and disintegrated, leaving rubble where pressure waves knocked down walls and incinerating everything in them.
The use of nuclear weapons defeats any human planning because the envisonment is made so toxic with radiation, that nobody could survive there, so that the primordial impulse to lay waste enemies is defeated itslelf.
Anyone not vaporised would be horribly burnt and already suffering from the exposure to nuclear radiation, a radiation that would remain potent and lethal for centuries. No enemy invader would gain anything because it would all remain deadly, in effect, forever. People in the Cheyenne Mountain complex might survive safe from EMP and atomic radiation, but
there would be little rational impetus to launch nuclear weapons because the first wave had already reduced the world to a pit of death. The enemy would be dead, the civilian population would be dead, and all human creations would be destroyed forever. Even something as simple as ordinary rainfall would be rendered deadly by radiation and the pollution of things burned into dust.
We do not have the right to ask to be spared if we do not commend ourselves to God and to Mary, the Mother of God, when they have begged us already to protect and defend us. We are so easilly overcome by our weaknesses that we are essentially defenseless. Thus, it would be a furtherance of insanity to turn away from God as if He had punished us by letting us blow ourseflves up.
The truth is, that we already can commit suicide in many ways; overating the wrong foods, drinking toxic beverages such as alcohol, ignoring medical warning signs, and indulging in things against which we have been warned, such a sexual promiscuity and indulgence. You can have a pretty good time partying and ignoring it all. But such things blind us to the truth that indulgence distances us from God who could sheild us if we asked Him.
It is time to do good things, think good thoughts and offer God our love because He promises to help us and defend us from the evil intentions of others we will never meet.
I warn you, that the good we do will be seen and the good we do will bless us with untold happiness, if only we can forgo the things of this life which bind us so. Only God offers us the release from that bondage to bring us life. The world only knows and only sees what interests evil. Where evil reigns, everyone must support evil. In this world there are those who engage in things that threaten life altogether. The human beings who adhere to the supremacy of sin, feel they are safe from the consequnces of their wrong doing. But God will reveal everything, and the new universe He will create will be for those who love God and one another. No one else.
"My Jesus I Trust in You".
Given the upheavals in political circles at the moment, this prayer is relevant for every human being on the planet right now.
If people do not call on Jesus and Mary for protection and for an immediate increase in faith and love, it may be very difficult ot impossible to be in a right relationship with Him to ensure salvation.
Let me therefore point out that our future and the future of other human beings is dependant on our relationship to Jesus, in our hearts and in our actions in life rightnow.
All my life I, like millions of others, have lived under the sword of nuclear war in which millions might be vaporised as were those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in world war two.
If there is no one else you love, let it be Jesus whom you love and to whom you turn with affection, putting aside all others in your heart so that there is nothing else but Jesus.
It requires nothing more than an expression of our love for Him, independant of our feelings. Do not let feelings stand in the way of a closer relationship with Jesus.
May God bless us all, protect us, and draw us close to Him.
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| We are one. |
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| The Mother of God does not grow tired of holding us close to Her Heartor of leading us closee to Her Son, Jesus. |
I say the Rosary every day. But I am a contemplative, so it makes a difference. I don't have the deep absorbtion in the presence of Jesus I had when I was younger, for reasons that were well-founded by the Lord, but lately I have felt closer than I have for many years.
It is not coincidental that I should encounter the Lord in my prayers, nor is it coincidental that when i have felt the desire to share in His passion, I have felt Him closer to me.
A contemplative encounters deep peace and love for the Lord of an intense nature. It is purely a gift, neither owed nor deserved, but it binds the person closer to Christ, enabling a contemplative person to pray with more ease.
Particularly when a contemplative prays while offering himself to Jesus in an intense way, he is delighted to sit in quiet with a stilled heart, in which to enjoy the presence of Him who draws people to Himself. The tenderness and joy of animated, living joy causes one to love Jesus in a most pure way, undistracted and at rest in his soul. It ought not to be any surprise, given how much He loves us, and given the intensity of gratitude and love present in the passion, it ought not to be a surprise when a love of His passion impresses itself intensely on a soul that would rather spend his time with God than any beloved person or animal.
Most particulalrly, when a person loves the Lord unselfishly and with singular devotion, He reveals Himself quite freely, and one's prayers might be directed to others whom He calls to mind. If the soul follows the prompts of the Lord and prays for a certain favor to be granted, one might find himseld "sunk" deep into Him, aware of His person and His divinity in a deep way.
The prayer of the contemplative intercessor may be dry as a desert, with mind and soul united in wishing to love Him and draw close to him. Following the prompts of the Spirit to include certain groups of people in his prayers is providential. Then prayers for healing are considered by the Lord with more reslish, and in some cases the person might blaze with a genuine desire to encounter the Lord's passion. If the person yeilds, he may encounter discomfort or even greater things than that.
The world is in distinct need ot the Lord now, that brothers are instigated against brothers so that anger and violence or even war might break out. The world needs to experience the tenderness of the Lord's love, and in the place where a brother or sister yeild themselves in love to Jesus and are consumed by His love encounter His suffering passion, prayers may have strength enough overcome the anger and the violence and restore brothers to be at peace with one another.
For this reason, the Mother of God urges all to pray the Rosary. She is most capable of helping us with such matters, and stands beside the person who suffers, particulalry those whose hearts are particulalry loving and attentive to the passion of Jesus. For this reason, She asks us to say the Rosary. She is particulalrly capable of understanding how people and nations got where they are, beset by worries about finances and sufferings, particulalry those who sufferings are in the heart and involve others who have hurt and injured us.
When I pray the Rosary, I feel His peace, and often then am drawn into His rest and quiet, and lose myself in Him. I have found it easier to pray cotemplatively when saying the Rosary if I close my eyes to allow me to conentrate on Jesus and less of myself of my concerns. This can be a problem if the beads and links of the Rosary's chains are small, because one needs a cue to use to know when to say the various prayers of the Rosary.
I used to fall asleep in the middle of the Rosary, but if the rosary I am using to pray the Rosary does not differentiate the beads, then it can be difficult. The beads need to be large enough, and the first bead at the start of a new decade needs to be distant enough from the next bead so that it is not necessary to open my eyes and check whether the bead indicates a new prayer or not.
Keeping my eyes shut allows me to avoid distractions so I may concentrate on the prayers.
Someone who says the Rosary and brings his intentions to the Lord and to Mary and strives to be attentive to them will receive graces. In situations where healing is necessary, it is very helpful to be able to demonstrate one's love of Jesus and Mary by focusing on being loving and attentive. The world is full of distractions and we must attend to some as it is important for fulfilling our duties to other people. Jesus and Mary will especially love anyone who tries in their own way to seek to be there for them.
If one prays, he is liable to be drawn closer to the Lord, and if one makes a habit of yeilding to the prompting of the Lord, it is quite possible one might be invited to come higher by the Lord. A genuine humility draws the Lord close so He makes us aware of Himself. Fasting and self denial dispose one to the Lord and to receive His favors, some of which might be extraordinary indeed, especially if one wishes to lavish a fresh love on others who have asked us to pray. Pleading for what someone else needs can bring a great deal of love into the picture. A person who prays contemplatively and in intercession for a person might lead to very great things indeed.
The world needs the Lord in order to be a human being; those who give up praying and cease making any effort to pray may just find their lives empty all of a sudden, and bitter and cold. To get out of such a place requires prayer, but it can be an awful slog, so that it helps to pray for sweetness of the Lord to keep our hearts open to Him.
Many sufferings accompany some people as a result. That suffering might be the occasion for a arid bitter to receive the gift of His love to dispell bitterness and despair.
When you say the Rosary, always include those in your prayers who have most need of His mercy and those most in need of His mercy so that they do die in despair but fervent with desire for the Lord and His merciful touch.
Keep in mind that the Mother of God is powerful in providing what She knows we need and that She wishes to fulfill us so that we may come to the moment of ultimate closeness to Jesus and His Mother.
Change is a constant in life. When it arises suddenly and unbidden, it may destroy. When it is easy to change rules and laws and no one can object, then we are in danger. This is especially troubling when you cannot object or change something. The human will is so important, that Jesus allowed Himself to be be beaten, ridiculed, intimidated and nailed to a cross to await the lance that opened His side.
When there is no recourse to change, and it becomes permanent, and cannot be altered, then something dies. Jesus died in order to change the immutable. Without Jesus, without His life and death, we would have no guide no hope and peace is laid waste. If there can be no objection, that does not automatically preclude change. Without the possibility of objection, or hope of change, the will is relegated to nothingness, and the human in us dies. Change has always been presaged by objection.
I have no means of getting to Mass. That needs to change, but no amount of prayer has changed that. Pain has diminished, but the pain in my side asserts itself when I am least expecting it. It hurts just enough to be reminded of Jesus, crucified. That I hurt and am reminded is something that does not change.
I am not shut-in, but that does not mean that anyone will come along to bring me to Mass or bring the Mass to me, not even the Eucharist. That is not extraordinary, because the Sacrment of Penance is denied me also, and no amount of papal decrees will change that. No priest should live as I did, but I am not a priest so it does not matter what the pope says about celibacy and the way priests must live. One can snap their fingers, but it will change nothing. And that is dangerous.
I fear the only thing that is changing is that there is greater opportunity to ignore things; rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic did not save anyone aboard her - she went down to the bottom of the ocean, and those who had no place on the boats died in the freezing cold water.
God must break the unbreakable for change to take place. His death must be stronger than the invasion of Ukraine, and more powerful than the russian army trying to take what is not theirs by force, killing and destroying things indiscrimantely, as if the victims of their slefihness were meaningless.
The thousands who died in Hiroshima and Nagsaki were not meaningless. The shadows that were left behind by the flash of light that vaporised thousands cannot be recalled, and the dead who were vaporised cannot be brought back.
Unless we believe in the passion of Christ, there can be no peace, and the kindness of those who love God and one another will be insufficient to change the course of history. But how can we overcome our lack of empathy and our exert out love to the extent that others might be protected unless the passion touches some part of us? It may be arrogant to say, but I can offer myself to feel and experience what no one else may want to feel or experience.
The priest in the parish house will suffer loneliness unless others awaken to the need to provide our loving kindness for their needs. Unless people know, they won't change anything. The pope himself will not feel it either unless it is allowed to become a part of his life experience. You cannot minister to others unless you can feel their pain in your own heart and your own side which awakens the awareness of the lance in His side in YOUR OWN body. That cannot be legislated in the Vatican or the parish house. It must take place in our own hearts and our own actions.
Do not abandon one another. Do not use indifference to relegate others to an instituionalised loneliness. Married or unmarried, a lonely man may feel only cold emptiness unless he is allowed to experience the warmth and happiness of others. Service cannot provide for human kindness by itself. Yet, it remains true, that the death of Christ was empty, lonely and frightening. Those who loved Him were experienced by Him. Our calling must be to the inclusion of the priest into our life as members of a family. That is nothing new, though the ennunciation of that need may be something new because someone recognized it was so.
To intercede is to stand in someone's place to take their punishment upon themselves so that the person is free of condemnation. Jesus is the ultimate Intercessor who stands in the place of ourselves to receive their punishment instead of them.
Jesus took upon Himself the death we incurred by sin so we may walk free of the sin and the punishment incurred by us for our sin,
So, one is really asking a lot when they come up to someone and ask them to intercede for somone so as to take on their illness, misfortune or suffering. If you know someone who would do so immediately and without question, you have met a prescious person worth your life.
To be so close to Jesus as to be permitted to ask to take someone's sickness or suffering to themselves as if it were their right to ask speaks of an intimacy of unspeakable quality.
The usual situtation is that a person asks Jesus to heal someone for whom they were asked to pray. To ask someone to intercede is to ask them to receive the suffering or pain with the expectation that the afflicted person will be free of whatever disease or suffering for which they were asked to pray.
It is not the usual case that we are talking about, when we speak of intercession. Such a condition might be that a person suffers some pain or misery for a time in exchange for a recovery from some illness or condition of deprivation.
One intercessor who comes to mind is Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the Capuchin frier who received the Stigmata so he could suffer in Christ's place for them to receive well-being and good fortune. He did this without asking anything for the favor. Padre Pio suffered the passion of Jesus every day for fifty years before the stimata were removed, and he died afterward. Being a priest, he participated in the passion of Jesus which the Mass commemorates, and during his Mass, he endured the passion of Jesus to the point of not only bleeding as if freshly crucified, but to the point of suffering all of the pain that accompanied the passion. He obtained the forgiveness of people's sins through his confessional. The person sometimes was accompanied by actual healing of the problem.
When we ask someone to intercede, we need to keep in mind what we are asking. The condition of the soul of Padre Pio was such that he was entrusted with particpation in the passion by suffering the wounds inflicted on Jesus by crucifixion after he had asked to suffer the stigmata invisibly, and the Lord entrusted His passion to Padre Pio in such a way that the stigmata were imposed visibly, which is to say, he got more than he bargained for.
Padre Pio could see the suffering of Jesus on the cross so that he endured the suffering of Jesus rejected and unloved in addition to the agony of nails having been driven in with a hammer in his hands, feet and side, so that he bled daily.
Having suffered thus for fifty years, Padre Pio died. His miracles still occur for people who have asked for healing or rhe remediation of troubles and problems.
It hurts to be ignored and abandoned. The elderly suffer it each day, all day, their sufferings interrupted only by sleep, which comes grudgingly and the loneliness remains unabated as long as they are awake.
It need not be loneliness that afflicts a man, but the opportunity exists to obtain favors from the Lord as we suffer our old age. The pains may be intermittent so that one thing or another may cause pain that is interrupted hour by hour and day by day. An old person who smiles is giving you a gift of pure love, and when someone does ask you to intercede for them, you might offer to suffer for the elderly in their daily pains. Often, having suffered invisibly, they are afflicted with greater sufferings, and finally death itself.
In the case of Jesus, as like Padre Pio, His suffering on the cross ended and He returned to His Father, receiving His only Son and His obedient endurance of the unendurable for the sake of love alone. This should inspire confidencee in Jesus during the day when all sorts of afflctions visit us and we find ourselves in a continuing confition of miserable suffering.
Jesus was innocent, having never committed a sin. When Padre Pio offered himself to suffer the passion invisibly, he was offering his virginity and holiness as well, his whole self. Stigmatised. he offered his whole self, submitting his all to Jesus in thanksgiving for the innocent and sinless sacrifice of his stigmata for the needs of the world of human beings he might never meet. He gifted himself to Jesus and Jesus accepted the relief of some of His pain, that He was able to receive by Padre Pio's selfless act of itnercession.
He may have seen what people wondered about in an age when terrors and horrors present themselves in exchange for the adulation of unrepentant sinners, who fail to see the goodness of Christ and the love of Jesus.
If we ahve sinned, we need to ask Jesus to forgive us so we will be able to particiapte in His salvation and intercession. The exposure of the holiness committed by so many daily is a source of light and comfort in a world of terror and sorrow.
The only chance you will get of making a difference is if you are there. A word at the right moment can carry a great deal of weight. Better yet, the statement you make by always being there is immense.
The Lord chooses to feel like us, and to be as vulnerable as we are. We might get hurt, we might be wounded, we might feel as if a wall of stone has fallen on us, but if you still your thoughts and be quiet, He will speak, and you will be made wonderfully.
Terrible things are waiting to happen, and the ONLY way the United States will survive is if everyone pulls the oars together. If you floudner around in political games, your suffering will be ten times worse. in addition, nations that have need of assistance won't get it because we will have been flattened by disasters and can't help. Let that sink in. Pray for one another. Help one another. Speak a word of encouragement and kindness and forget political garbage. When the country has been shaken down, only those who look out for one another will have any slightest aid or comfort. Jesus receives assistance from the prayers and kindneesses of others, and He remembers even the smallest sip of water.
There is no such thing as getting rid of one's own will. One can surrender his will to Him as totally as possible, and trust Him for the little He sees we are still attached to our own will.
For some, that is not difficult, but for others, it can be searing as any surgery without anesthesia. Still, our mortal nature limits how much pain we can absorb, and nature protects us against excesses. The best we can do is do as He wishes, and trust.
I would wish the mess we have in Washington DC might be transformed complettely by some magic, but what magic can we weild against the kind of evil that prevails? In willing what He wills, we again, can go only so far before our limits have been reached. Fortunately, the fact that Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified means that He is capable of things we cannot imagine.
That we can assist Him with our penaces and acceptance of trials is irrefutable. That is why there are contemplatives and those dwelling in silent solitude.
Pray for each other and for the work of the Lord in each life. The day is coming when we will be able to see, and then we will rejoice.
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How do you love yourself when you are crucified? You must, because His love will never cease to make you more one with Him through the pain itself. The key to the heart of those you seem unable to reach with the touch of His kindness is directly related to depths of His crucified pain.
Do not scrap the spirituality you grew up with for something new and shiney. There are lots of Youtube videos making statements about how people should pray and how they should do the most innocuous things these days.
A humble attitude is your most important attribute as a human being. Praying to God to help your prayer and attitude is absolutely beyond priceless. How you hold a rosary or your prayer posture is not more important than your attititude.
I humble myself in the dirt at the foot of the cross where I belong because of my sins, and I ask you, Lord, to be made acceptable in all things in my life so I may grasp my salvation and enjoy your loving kindness in spite of my faults.
A lackadaisical attitude IS dangerous; a lack of gratitude and faith will lead you to become disrespectful and lose your all important salvation.
Our very weakness and blindness to spiritual realities can ennervate faith by which we see the unseen and our behavior toward the Almighty will suffer.
At the same time, speak how you feel toward the Lord, with respect, and honor Him as your creator.
Spend the time you have in prayer. God is the one who made you and gave you the time in which you live. Meanwhile, realize that we are blind to spiritual realities, and we must want to see Him and be aware of Him if we are to have any chance of deporting ourselves with a proper attitude.
The saints went off to hidden places to have solitude in which to speak to Him and to see Him as He is, whether you are gifted with insight or consolations, or not.
Do not despise His gifts, but graciously accept them, acknowledging their Source. If you lack reverence or respect, do not expect gifts from the Lord. The spouse of our souls deserves the most respectful attitude, and if our love is to blossom, we need to make time for Him and we need to listen closely in solitude and silence.
This may mean difficult moments for someone just beginning a life of prayer. But to remember that He was crucified in our place helps immensely. You may expect opposition the more you spend time with the Him instead of yourself and your obssessions. If you truly desire solitude and silence in which to cultivate an appropriate attitude, you must move your heart to be close to Him, listening intently and placing Him in the time He gave you, at His feet and close enough to His Heart to hear His longing for you.
That longing is reflected in reality itself. He will calm the tempests and provide for your most important needs. Don't forget to remember Him, and that He is as close as your next breath, and your next thought. As much as you like the things of the world because you are immsersed in them, you must make an equal amount of time available for Him. Remember you get only this one chance. Do not squander your time on your only fickle obssesions. He who made you can do all things, and transform you to one who is HIs lover, and He will embrace a warm and beating heart.
Peace is one thing, opening up to it and sitting still in it for a time determines whther peace is beneficial or not. Too often people are...
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